Helen Sommers: An Oral History

Wayne Ehlers
Then when it was done, Bagnariol and Berentson
went out and had a few drinks together. (laughter)
The Co-Speakers and their caucuses had real
legislative history and memory. The relationships
between Democrats and Republicans were far
different when we first came in than they are now.
Those kinds of relationships changed over time,
and not for the better. For two years, the tie lasted
and it went surprisingly well.
One of the unfortunate things that happened
in the first tie was when a group of lobbyists talked
to the Republican members and said there were a
number of partisan Democrats who were working
on the non-partisan legislative staff. They told the
Republicans they should identify which non-partisan
staffers were Democrats and which ones were
Republicans. The lobbyists wanted to replace the
non-partisan people lobbyists didn’t like because
lobbyists said they were partisan Democrats. So
that started creating partisan staff.
Up to that time, there were just a few staff
people in partisan positions in the caucuses and a
few in the Speakers’ offices, and the rest of staff
were non-partisan and worked for committees and
administration. But because of that incident by
lobbyists, it created a whole partisan staff whose
jobs depended upon their getting in the majority
or staying in the majority. So it became a situation
where staff was doing opposition research so they
could find things to ‘zing’ the members and the
parties on in the next campaign.
That really changed the way the Legislature
worked. It all started, I think, primarily because of
the tie, and we started a process of having maybe
20-some partisan staff people being identified who
then became full-time partisan. I think that was one
of the downsides of the first 49-49 tie. It created a
much more partisan Legislature after that because
it really started the move to real nasty campaigns
based on opposition research. So, it was hard for
members who got attacked, but still reelected, to
go down and be civil to some members and staff
people who tried to do them in. It really changed
everything.
Monahan: In the 1980 election Republicans won
both the House and, with a switch by one Demo-
pg. 111
crat to Republican, the Senate. Republican John
Spellman was the new governor after a single term
by Gov. Dixy Lee Ray.
Speaker Ehlers: Yes. In 1981, the Republicans controlled
the House with a 56-42 majority. Rep. Bill
Polk was elected Speaker by his caucus. And the
new governor was John Spellman. In the Democratic
Caucus, there was a three-way race for Minority
Leader of the House. It started with me competing
for the leadership role against Rep. Rick Bender,
but Bender dropped out after the first ballot. Then,
Helen Sommers jumped into the race, and I did
beat her in an election for Minority Leader.
Monahan: Polk was Speaker for just one term, and
the Democrats in the House gained control of the
House by a 54-44, so you picked up 12 seats in
the election. You went from Minority Leader to
Speaker of the House and you served as Speaker
for two terms.
Speaker Ehlers: I was the first speaker in 30 or 40
years who actually completed two terms. Leonard
Sawyer was elected twice as Speaker, but he never
finished as Speaker in his second term because we
forced him out in 1976.
Monahan: When you served as Speaker, the first
two years (1983-84) Spellman was governor. In the
first two years of Spellman’s term, when he had
the Republican majority in the House, I remember
his reference to the House Republican Caucus as
‘troglodytes.’ I think he must have had an easier
road with the Democrats, with you as Speaker than
he did with the House Republican caucus.
Speaker Ehlers: Yes, In fact, this year, just before
the 2009 session started, Gov. Spellman, Speaker
Bill Polk and I were on TVW for an hour program
talking about the economic crisis we were going
through in 1981-82. We wanted to try to give some
advise to what the Legislature should do in light of
the current 2008-09 fiscal crisis the nation and our
states are going through. We talked about where
the parallels were from that experience and what
we did wrong and what we did right.
At one point the commentator asked Gov. Spellman
about how he got along with the Republicans
in his first two years in office. I can hardly choke it